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perednia's review against another edition
4.0
Friendship, loyalty, the feeling of belonging, and how tenuous these concepts are in reality for the faint at heart, are central to Andre Aciman's latest novel, Harvard Square.
In the summer of 1977, a Jewish graduate student at Harvard from Alexandria, Egypt, who will never go home, is hit by the summer doldrums. He has failed his comprehensives, has one more chance to pass them and needs to read like a fiend all summer. So of course he would rather be doing anything else.
Drawn to a cafe that reminds him of home, he meets a loud, abusive Tunisian Arab who commands the attention of everyone around, especially the women. Kalaj is a cabdriver, but he knows more about many things than just about everyone else. And doesn't mind telling them so.
He's also a performance artist who adores women; his every public move is calculated to draw their attention and flirt until they go off together. Kalaj is mesmerizing to our narrator.
Their acquaintance becomes a friendship of opposites, an academic and cabdriver, Jew and Arab, quiet and boisterous, wavering and steadfast, one with a green card and the other without.
The themes in Aciman's story are well-served by the story of the two young men at turning points in their lives. The academic does not turn his back on Harvard, only on people. Kalaj, after being so vigorously a critic of the ersatz United States and everything it stands for, falls whole-heartedly when he is accepted into the narrator's world.
Aciman does at least as much, if not more, tell rather than show in his story, but with a purpose. The emotions, the observations, the reflections are at the heart of what Aciman's narrator is trying to recapture in the story of that long-ago summer. It's told as a flashback, with the endpieces being the older man bringing his son to Harvard during the child's college search. The narrator is searching to feel all those feelings again as much as he is weaving a narrative.
Aciman does not name his narrator. This helps reinforce the universal human qualities of his narrator, who spends that summer both knowing how fortunate he is to be at Harvard studying what he wants, while also regretting that he can't have other kinds of lives as well. His life, even when he makes choices, is not a life like the one lived by Kalaj, who lives for the moment, who lives each moment to the fullest, who is larger than life to everyone.
Aciman does a wonderful job of capturing that feeling of being in a place where you feel you will be unmasked as a fraud, that everyone will know you don't really belong there, and how empowering it feels to get away with any slight action that makes it look like you do belong. This works as well for the Harvard academic setting as it does for an ex-pat living in a foreign country.
Another aspect of the novel that worked well was that feeling of befriending someone as magnetic as Kalaj. It may initially feel like being on top of the world that such a strong personality wants to spend time with you. But does it feel the same after you realize that friend has sucked up all the oxygen in the world? What to do if you are both proud and ashamed of knowing such a person? A book that leads to wondering about such things is one well worth spending time in.
In the summer of 1977, a Jewish graduate student at Harvard from Alexandria, Egypt, who will never go home, is hit by the summer doldrums. He has failed his comprehensives, has one more chance to pass them and needs to read like a fiend all summer. So of course he would rather be doing anything else.
Drawn to a cafe that reminds him of home, he meets a loud, abusive Tunisian Arab who commands the attention of everyone around, especially the women. Kalaj is a cabdriver, but he knows more about many things than just about everyone else. And doesn't mind telling them so.
He's also a performance artist who adores women; his every public move is calculated to draw their attention and flirt until they go off together. Kalaj is mesmerizing to our narrator.
Their acquaintance becomes a friendship of opposites, an academic and cabdriver, Jew and Arab, quiet and boisterous, wavering and steadfast, one with a green card and the other without.
The themes in Aciman's story are well-served by the story of the two young men at turning points in their lives. The academic does not turn his back on Harvard, only on people. Kalaj, after being so vigorously a critic of the ersatz United States and everything it stands for, falls whole-heartedly when he is accepted into the narrator's world.
Aciman does at least as much, if not more, tell rather than show in his story, but with a purpose. The emotions, the observations, the reflections are at the heart of what Aciman's narrator is trying to recapture in the story of that long-ago summer. It's told as a flashback, with the endpieces being the older man bringing his son to Harvard during the child's college search. The narrator is searching to feel all those feelings again as much as he is weaving a narrative.
Aciman does not name his narrator. This helps reinforce the universal human qualities of his narrator, who spends that summer both knowing how fortunate he is to be at Harvard studying what he wants, while also regretting that he can't have other kinds of lives as well. His life, even when he makes choices, is not a life like the one lived by Kalaj, who lives for the moment, who lives each moment to the fullest, who is larger than life to everyone.
Aciman does a wonderful job of capturing that feeling of being in a place where you feel you will be unmasked as a fraud, that everyone will know you don't really belong there, and how empowering it feels to get away with any slight action that makes it look like you do belong. This works as well for the Harvard academic setting as it does for an ex-pat living in a foreign country.
Another aspect of the novel that worked well was that feeling of befriending someone as magnetic as Kalaj. It may initially feel like being on top of the world that such a strong personality wants to spend time with you. But does it feel the same after you realize that friend has sucked up all the oxygen in the world? What to do if you are both proud and ashamed of knowing such a person? A book that leads to wondering about such things is one well worth spending time in.
suzanne07090's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
brooklynbrianreads's review against another edition
4.0
“One doesn’t sit around a table for food only. Food is there to feed friendship,” he said. I don’t think any of us understood the wisdom of the saying, but it sounded good, and perhaps we were all in the mood to believe just about anything that spoke well of friends and food fellowship
Parts of this book had me hooting in ecstasy!
Parts of this book had me hooting in ecstasy!
finocchio's review against another edition
4.0
Expecting the delicate splendor of Call Me By Your Name, I was taken aback at not only the narrator of the audiobook, but the story itself. But as things progressed I got it. It was different book - dah - and I enjoyed it. And it was good if not unbelievably unbelievable is so many ways.
There is the main character, who seems like he's 13 going on 22 who is really 27 (or so) and a character bigger than life who seems like a Titan who never seems to have any redeemable traits (well, hardly any) except he can dominate a room.
Oh well, I love the author's erudite fiction (not at Eco's level, mind you -- but more intimate). I will continue to work through his oeuvre.
There is the main character, who seems like he's 13 going on 22 who is really 27 (or so) and a character bigger than life who seems like a Titan who never seems to have any redeemable traits (well, hardly any) except he can dominate a room.
Oh well, I love the author's erudite fiction (not at Eco's level, mind you -- but more intimate). I will continue to work through his oeuvre.
fanereads's review against another edition
3.0
well that was an odd book. i think it mainly focuses on the friendship of the two mc but somehow the way it ended with that last line – very questionable. sounds platonic but quite suggestive towards the opposite. idk. decent read tho.
i do feel like this is my least fav book out of all the book i read from the author. it didn’t do much for me.
i do feel like this is my least fav book out of all the book i read from the author. it didn’t do much for me.
thelumenoel's review against another edition
5.0
This was a beautiful book about friendship and the ups and downs and expectations of those around you. I really loved relating to both the narrator and Kalaj in their money struggles as well as navigating through school, work, and relationships. I also loved what I couldn’t relate to and that was their cultures that they shared as a Jew and an Arab in a new world they were just trying to fit into and make their own.
chelsea_not_chels's review against another edition
2.0
More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.
In the wake of reading this book, I just had to go back to the description on Goodreads and give it another once-over, because, quite frankly, I didn't find it all that it's cracked up to be. According to the big bold print at the top of the description, Harvard Square is "A powerful tale of love, friendship, and becoming American in late ’70s Cambridge" and according to the text at the bottom, "It is the book that will seal André Aciman’s reputation as one of the finest writers of our time." I didn't find this book to be either of those things. A few things I did find it: tedious, pretentious, boring, and just overall not dazzling. I'm confused as to how these descriptions ended up attached to Harvard Square and not, with a few adjustments for time and place, attached to the far superior Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. Both Harvard and Americanah deal with the trials and tribulations of scholarship and immigration and relationships, but only one of them does so in an emotionally gripping way, and it isn't Harvard.
I think the main problem with Harvard Square is the main character and narrator. He's nameless, which isn't an issue. He's also meant to juxtapose the other central character of the story, Kalaj, which also isn't an issue in and of itself. What is an issue is that, in pouring so much spirit into Kalaj, it feels like the narrator is just empty in comparison. He's a watery echo of Kalaj. The narrator describes Kalaj as another version of himself, if he hadn't had connections and hope in the process of immigrating to America from Africa (the narrator is from Egypt, and Kalaj is from Tunisia, both by way of France) but that comparison doesn't really hold any emotion because the narrator is kind of a jerk who, although he describes Kalaj as the most precious person in the world to him at one point, doesn't lift a finger to help him or even acknowledge his struggle, and is glad to have him out of his life at the first opportunity. The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding, especially in reflection in later years. There are some bits of nice writing, but overall the narrative was just so blah that nice writing couldn't really compensate.
Quite frankly, I don't have that much to say about this one. I feel like it's been done, and done better, despite the high praise this book was gotten from other people. If you want to read about the student immigrant experience with a real, human heart and more dimension, go read Americanah. This one just falls flat.
2 stars out of 5.
In the wake of reading this book, I just had to go back to the description on Goodreads and give it another once-over, because, quite frankly, I didn't find it all that it's cracked up to be. According to the big bold print at the top of the description, Harvard Square is "A powerful tale of love, friendship, and becoming American in late ’70s Cambridge" and according to the text at the bottom, "It is the book that will seal André Aciman’s reputation as one of the finest writers of our time." I didn't find this book to be either of those things. A few things I did find it: tedious, pretentious, boring, and just overall not dazzling. I'm confused as to how these descriptions ended up attached to Harvard Square and not, with a few adjustments for time and place, attached to the far superior Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. Both Harvard and Americanah deal with the trials and tribulations of scholarship and immigration and relationships, but only one of them does so in an emotionally gripping way, and it isn't Harvard.
I think the main problem with Harvard Square is the main character and narrator. He's nameless, which isn't an issue. He's also meant to juxtapose the other central character of the story, Kalaj, which also isn't an issue in and of itself. What is an issue is that, in pouring so much spirit into Kalaj, it feels like the narrator is just empty in comparison. He's a watery echo of Kalaj. The narrator describes Kalaj as another version of himself, if he hadn't had connections and hope in the process of immigrating to America from Africa (the narrator is from Egypt, and Kalaj is from Tunisia, both by way of France) but that comparison doesn't really hold any emotion because the narrator is kind of a jerk who, although he describes Kalaj as the most precious person in the world to him at one point, doesn't lift a finger to help him or even acknowledge his struggle, and is glad to have him out of his life at the first opportunity. The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding, especially in reflection in later years. There are some bits of nice writing, but overall the narrative was just so blah that nice writing couldn't really compensate.
Quite frankly, I don't have that much to say about this one. I feel like it's been done, and done better, despite the high praise this book was gotten from other people. If you want to read about the student immigrant experience with a real, human heart and more dimension, go read Americanah. This one just falls flat.
2 stars out of 5.
maggieburke27's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
greenishmich's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0